REVIEW: No Flowers Required by Cari Quinn

_______________________________________________________________Blurb

He’ll give her everything she desires… except his identity.

Flower shop owner Alexa Conroy had it all before the recession hit and her customers fled to cheaper shopping grounds. Desperate to make ends meet, she sells her dream home and moves into the rundown apartments above her shop. When she spots six feet of sexy distraction — complete with muscles, piercings, and tattoos — ripping up flooring, Alexa knows the karmic windfall she’s due just landed on her doorstep.

And the attraction’s definitely not one-sided.

Dillon James, reluctant heir to the corporation about to foreclose on Alexa’s shop, is not about to jeopardize their scorching chemistry by admitting he’s not the building’s handyman. But with only weeks until her business goes under and his identity is revealed, Dillon must find a way to convince Alexa cooperation isn’t a dirty word, help her save the shop from his brother’s greed, and persuade her that he’s not the enemy… or risk losing the only woman who’s seen the real him.
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Change was coming. Time to seize the day, and everything that came with it.

My Review

As for the base of the plot, I had a little You’ve Got Mail movie feeling. Alexa owns Divine Flowers, while Dillon and his family are the owners of the big, greedy Value Hardware, ruining Alexa’s business by selling cheap flowers. Further episodes could also be great material for a romantic comedy movie, such as making out in the rain, or the auction scene.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a pretty enjoyable, lovely story, with scorching hot yet emotional erotic scenes. I’m sure I would enjoy a movie made out of it.CharactersDillon. He is described as a “bad boy”, a rebel. It was not perceptible. Outer features, like his tats, piercing and Harley are hardly enough to be a bad boy.No, he was not a bad boy, but a piece of cake. He was all kind, helpful, affectionate, perceptive, and caring. He did charity work, made rooftop gardens, and aquarelle paintings. He had a perfect body, talent in manual labor, and sense of responsibility for the environment. Perfect gentleman by day, perfectly dirty by night… Can you imagine?

Maybe Dillon is perfect – too perfect, actually – but he is still likeable. Who wouldn’t trust a man like him?But Alexa is very mistrustful, with “sadness in her eyes”. But where does it come from? Selling her dream house is sad, okay, but hardly ruins her life.
You are not informed about former love delusions, or why had she built all those walls around herself. She is bitter, apparently with no reason.
I found Alexa’s behavior a little overdramatic. Her stubbornness and hostility toward Value Hardware was pretty narrow-minded too.The backgrounds of the characters are vague, but their feelings and emotions throughout the story are amazingly well written. Actually, Dillon’s is, not Alexa’s. The characterization is a little unbalanced between the two of them. Dillon’s character is more consequent and clearer than Alexa’s.Each event has a great timing in the plot, though sometimes I felt the filling parts, well, fillers.

The erotica is exceptionally spicy and filled with emotions, with the wonder of the unprecedented uniqueness, especially from Dillon’s part.

All in all, it is a great story, with a likeable hero, a little hysteric heroine, pretty good romance development, and heated, sizzling erotica. Recommended!